


we get what we deserve

by valkyrierising



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Coda, Episode Tag, F/M, post 4x02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-25
Updated: 2016-11-25
Packaged: 2018-09-02 02:47:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8648776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valkyrierising/pseuds/valkyrierising
Summary: Gangsters and drug dealers were standard fare but they were getting more dangerous, bringing out bigger guns and some other shit with them. But she found the leader of the pack and delivered it to him. It only seemed fair to give something back for what she had done, a white flag of sorts.





	

**Author's Note:**

> title comes from 'way down we go' by kaleo

He trusts her about as far as he can throw her, but there’s something about her that calls to him - he doesn’t trust her like he trusts his blood, but she wasn’t like the others who begged to spare their life when he arrived. Even with the dogged pursuit, she delivered justice all the same. Almost paralleling his own path of retribution and vengeance without the side bargain to the devil, it was a pretty weird feeling to find someone who he was even thinking of offering a partnership, let alone someone who could somewhat understand; he worked better alone and she was a risk. 

 

He  _ did  _ try to kill her a few times, but it’s nothing she couldn’t handle given her unique abilities. He still winces when he thinks of the wrong foot they started with _.  _ Danger burst into his mind when she arrived at Canelo's, the anger rising at her wide smirk and defiant eyes, daring him to fight her right then and there. She was righteous in a different way, a signal flare to the thing inside of him. 

 

She stopped those men back at Momentum from chasing after him which was a nice change from the usual scenario where everyone tried to fight him - he’d have thought the flaming skull would’ve been a deterrent but the desperate weren’t always logical. And she hadn’t called in any other authorities, keeping it between them. So while she was a verifiable pain in the ass, she was also a clever pain in the ass. Two heads could cover more ground, help give him some kind of direction to the weird shit happening around his home. 

 

Gangsters and drug dealers were standard fare but they were getting more dangerous, bringing out bigger guns and some other shit with them. But she had found the leader of the pack and delivered it to him. It only seemed fair to give something back for what she had done, a white flag of sorts. 

 

He pulls up to her right outside Canelo’s, watching as she slams the van door with her good arm a little more force than necessary; a small part wants to laugh at her own sabotage efforts backfiring on her but it’s nothing he can’t probably fix later. However, he doesn’t think he could fault her mood, remembering her fall from the Charger and how she managed to pick herself back up to get herself to the lab. He wasn’t sure what her trajectory was, but it was nothing good if she was so willing to almost die the first time they met (and still seek it, two times after).

 

But she piqued his interest. She looked like she had nothing to lose and he’s not sure if it’s the Ghost or his own connection to her that was intrigued by this girl who dropped unannounced into his life, pushed her way into his path. He remembers the night she came to the yard in startlingly clarity, the fear and adrenaline intoxicating as she asked about the Charger, a nonexistent boyfriend. There was probably something to be said that she threw out serial killer against him in that first meeting that while he couldn’t deny it, was a problem. 

 

It made distinguishing between him and the ghost that much harder, if this was always inside of him or if near uncontrollable rage is just a really shitty side-effect of dying.

 

“Sorry about that,” he adds as she closes the door; they don’t have a destination and she’s thinking he might be trying to kill her but the reality is that it’s to calm his own nerves - driving around the city. It’s not his shift yet, and he probably could’ve contacted at her some other time, but he feels compelled to do this now. She scoffs for a second, a disbelieving laughter working it’s way before she nods. She’s a strange girl. 

 

“Nothing I probably wouldn’t have done,” she admits. She moves her hands to grip the top of the car, unease in her that again, he can’t deny she doesn’t have a reason to feel. There’s something calming about the road, the thrum of the engine that seems to be the only thing that gives him peace. The acceleration, the shifting cylinders, it’s a type of cocoon for him. He’s always loved the Charger, sneaking out with it when his  tío was too wiped out from work. It brought him joy, it was something he was good at that no one could take from him, becoming a street racer in between the time they were reeling from their parents death that was pure skill.  But following his death and the return to life, the Charger feels just as much of an extension of his soul as the other guy does. 

 

The Charger is neutral space, a safe place. He let her in, an understanding that comes without saying when she agreed to enter that it would raise a white flag between them.

 

He doesn’t trust her, not really, but she wasn’t an enemy. He wonders what to begin with, whether the Ghost Rider or the fact that he knew what was in Momentum Labs, or  tío Eli. He thinks the Ghost Rider should go first, but he won’t tell her the messy details.

 

“I sold my soul to the devil, and as you saw,” he begins again, watching as her eyes drift from him to the windshield constantly. She tilts her head, eyes widening the slightest at him to continue on. “I go on fire. And those men had a reason. I don’t kill those who don’t deserve it.” 

 

She bites her bottom lip like she wants to say something but doesn’t. Does she really get higher ground when she was exactly like him, except doling out crippling injuries instead of a gruesome death? Where did her mission end and his exacting vengeance begin? It’s a lot to deal with but the fact that he sought her out even though they’d gone their own ways had to count for something. He wasn’t necessarily a friend, but he wasn’t exactly an enemy and she needed whoever she could get on her side. It turns out one woman  _ could  _ do significant damage on her own but it made life that much harder, constantly watching behind her back. It helps that the guy on fire isn’t against her but people were unpredictable, and just as they could be swayed they could be turned against.

  
“I believe you,” is all she says, as he cuts her an inscrutable look. They continue driving, side streets instead of the main ones. There’s nothing else to say as she weighs in her mind what to tell him, what to reveal that he wasn’t already able to find out before settling on listening to him. He didn’t give a fuck about the vigilante Quake, but she was very intrigued at what exactly was the Ghost Rider that he terrorized a city and hailed him all at once, a mural to him that updated daily. The way he was able to read her in Canelo’s was unnerving. What stands out most is the multiple opportunities he had to kill her, that he didn’t take, which was even  _ more  _ unnerving. 

 

She’s had stranger partners but this was just another layer of inexplicable. 

 

The car purrs underneath her, watching as he guns the car with practiced ease. It’s just as much a part of him as whatever it is, and to be fair, it is a pretty sweet car. It feels weird to be inside his car, something that is irrefutably his. 

 

“So you’re not gonna kill me?” She cuts out because this silence was starting to feel like an itch that needed to be done away with. Even though she was content with silence, she needed to know whether he was a friend or foe, if she had to get him out of the way if need be.

 

“Not unless you deserve it,” he replies, a swift u-turn as she moves closer to him by inches. 

 

“Comforting,” she bites back, because it is, because he only killed the guilty, and because the strange shit that’s popped up in the last few years is any indication, why shouldn’t the devil be real? And if the devil himself looked into her soul and deemed her innocent, well, wasn’t that an annoying wrench in the whole self imposed distance from the team?  

 

He smirks just the slightest bit, speeding up in response. She narrows her eyes as she rethinks the invitation, wondering if he’s trying to spook her which sounds stupid since she’s already in the car but maybe she really needed to ease off on the paranoia/worst case scenario at all times. 

 

She’s waiting for him to tell her about why he’d offered her a ride before she realizes that he’s thinking what to tell her, fiercely protective of his family if they were mentioned if the scene at Canelo’s in her van was any indication. 

 

He would tell her when he was ready, and she feels that the time for murder has already passed between them that she can trust him, at the very least minimally. She lets herself relax in the passenger’s seat, letting his driving ease her into some kind of dysfunctional harmony between them that only she could manage to do.


End file.
